Experience

It's "Playtime" with Jacques Tati in two new series

You could make a case for Jacques Tati as the last great silent comedian—even if he didn’t begin making features until two decades into the sound era. Certainly he had more in common as a filmmaker with the styles of Chaplin and Buster Keaton than any major comic talents of subsequent decades, including primarily slapstick (rather than verbal) ones like Laurel & Hardy.

His contribution remains unique—the closest comparisons being, perhaps, Keaton for his deadpan orchestration of extraordinary physical chaos, and the current cult Swedish director Roy Andersson (You, the Living) for his existential absurdism built through meticulously designed setpieces sans conventional plot or character focus. If Keaton was once a thoroughly mainstream entertainer, and Andersson is something of a rarefied arthouse secret, Tati was a bit of both—a critical favorite who enjoyed his moment of international success, albeit all too briefly.

topics: actors, audiences, cinephiles, comedy, directors, pacific film archive, world cinema, yerba buena center for the arts

Report

Citizen critics found new outlets, faced challenges in 2009

The silver lining to a decade that saw traditional critics in conventional media dwindle? The explosion of socially networked citizen critics who’ve helped create a multidimensional, democratic dialogue about the movies. San Francisco, with its panoply of film festivals, has, not surprisingly, spawned a wealth of such web-based writers. We checked in with a few of these writers, some of whom call themselves bloggers, to get a snapshot of what ’09 brought the web’s way as the economy faltered, and the community tweeted.

topics: bay area, blogs, cinephiles, critics, exhibition, festivals, world cinema

Report

Thoughts on the aughts: best/worst trends of the year and decade

A decade as odd as this one, with George Bush and Barack Obama as its bookends, deserves to be examined. While the U.S. moved from rebuilding decimated skyscrapers to the rebuilding of an entire economy, film moved from the multiplex to the mailbox to the cell phone. But did the pictures really get small? We tried to find out by surveying Bay Area film-industry professionals as well as everyday fans on the trends that moved them. We found love for animation and hate for the ascendancy of the first-person narrator-star in documentary films. We saw pleas for more collaboration and less ego. We encountered disdain for CGI and hope for independent exhibitors and filmmakers. The comments below were selected from many we received; needless to say, we couldn’t publish everything. If you feel we missed anything in particular, we encourage you to issue a few opinions of your own in the "comments" box at story’s end.

topics: activism, actors, animation, bay area, cinephiles, critics, critics year end polls, digital distribution, digital filmmaking, directors, distributors, diy, documentary film, drama, environmental films, gay lesbian cinema, genre films, tv, world cinema, youth

Report

Top 10s of 2009: Critics, filmmakers, exhibitors, distributors and fans speak

It was a big year for 3D, but critics and film-industry folk in the Bay Area found many other dimensions in the cinema of 2009. Included in these lists we solicited from the community are not just films released this year locally, but occasionally films that have had festival-only screenings elsewhere or films made in ’08 that had local releases in ’09. We gave wide berth to our well-traveled respondents, a few of whom offered comments on films, or limited their selections to moments within films. Directors and countries of origin on films are listed on first mention; lists appear in the order they were received. And please: Join the fray. Share your own lists in the "comments" box, below.

topics: audiences, authors, awards, bay area, cinephiles, critics, critics year end polls, cult cinema, curators, directors

Take Two

Soulful "35 Shots of Rum" is gently intoxicating

Few directors remain as restless and unpredictable in their choices as Claire Denis has over the last 20 years—qualities rarer still for someone now past 60 who didn’t direct her first feature until age 40. (Before then she was assistant director to a starry range including Wenders, Jarmusch, Costa-Gavras and Dusan Makavejev.)

Her 1988 writing-directing debut first feature Chocolat (no relation to the 2000 Johnny Depp movie) drew on her growing up as a French civil servant’s child in colonial Africa. Immigration and multiculturalism in French-speaking societies has remained one consistent thread.

topics: cinephiles, directors, french cinema, women filmmakers

Take Two

Holiday film preview, part II

I don’t know about you, but I know what I want for Christmas (and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, for that matter): Some decent movies. Hope springs eternal, especially at this time of year. It’s Hollywood custom now to reserve the majority of its prestige titles for an annual late onslaught, the idea being that award-bestowing organizations’ voters naturally gravitate toward whatever is freshest in their memories. In the indie sector, too, there are some goodies timed for holiday gifting.

So, here’s part II of our glancing, far-from-exhaustive preview of what we’ve got to look forward to between now and New Year’s Day.

topics: activism, art film, bay area, cinephiles, critics, documentary, exhibition, experimental film, genre films, hollywood

Platform

"Sorry, Thanks" lavishes love on the Mission

From the steep slope of 22nd Street down to La Taqueria, from the Attic to Boogaloos, Dia Sokol and Lauren Veloski’s droll and charming Sorry, Thanks showcases the Mission to glowing advantage. Veloski (producer and co-writer) was born and raised in the Bay Area and knows the territory, while Sokol (director and co-writer) mapped the terrain of seriocomic relationship movies as producer of Andrew Bujalski’s Beeswax and Mutual Appreciation. Sorry, Thanks follows the dating stutter-steps of a young woman (Kenya Miles) unattached for the first time in eons, and the amusing antics of a passive underachiever (Wiley Wiggins) barely present in his long-term relationship. Talky without being pretentious—or precious—the film glides gradually from gently absurd comedy into a poignant look at commitment and responsibility. We caught up with the filmmakers via email ahead of the Bay Area screenings of Sorry, Thanks October 11 and 12 in the Mill Valley Film Festival, and October 24 in the first annual SFFS Cinema by the Bay festival in San Francisco.

[Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in advance of the film’s MVFF screening.]

topics: bay area, cinephiles, directors, distributors, film festivals, independent film, mill valley film festival